A Voice In The Wilderness

A Voice In The Wilderness    

By Paul McCann

Forty years ago I was working as a used car salesman for Bill Nicholson in his car yard at Granville .Each day was busy there talking to customers , making sales and handling cash , detailing and moving the cars around but every lunch I would be in my office with a coffee and sandwich writing song lyrics that were going through my head . One day Bill said to me what are you writing on your lunch breaks .
I told him that I write songs .
He immediately replied ,
“ Can I read some of them ?so I brought him my notebook of lyrics and he spent his lunchtime going through some lyrics I was working on .
He returned my lyrics and said .

“I think you have something here , I’d advise you to give your talent 100 percent of your time .“

I looked at him with a sense of gratitude and concern saying ,

“Thanks Bill but tell me how can I survive . I need to pay rent and buy food , if I’m not working everyday how can I do that ?

Bill responded ,
“Every artist has to suffer for what they do . It’s all part of having a talent . “
After work , I went home and thought over what he had said .

The next day I told him I’d take his advice and would be finishing up working in the car yard that day .

Since that day I dedicated my life to writing songs and don’t regret what I did . I believe there are some people who are true witness to supporting other people honestly in what they are trying to achieve . These are the kind of people who are able to be a beautiful witness of goodness in the world and unselfishly stare back at you saying in a subtle but kind way ,
 I believe in you , go find your dreams and make your life unique . Don’t listen to those who doubt you , don’t worry about those who can’t help or support you , keep doing what you do and make your dreams be like a living picture filled with colour for others to enjoy .

So I left the car yard and moved into this half a house with an old man in Pendle Hill where I wrote songs everyday .

After a while doing that I went overseas to London to write some more songs .After five years writing songs in different places in England and Ireland I returned to Australia where I continued to write songs everyday.

Then in 1992 I was married and had four children and kept writing songs during that time .

I’m really grateful for people like Bill Nicholson who gave me the advice no one ever could have done .
I’ve written two thousand songs and recorded a small number of those that I recently placed on Spotify and you tube .

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It’s a lifetimes work but one I will never regret and I will never forget the few people who have supported me with writing and recording my songs .

The years of writing included busking my songs to people on the street . It was a sounding board .for what I was doing . In my efforts to try to get a publisher or music producer to help me with my songs I had tried sending demo cassettes to music publishers and cp;d canvassing just walking into music distributers with my work however the result was always the same basically they said that my work was not the kind od product they were looking for , which I thought was unfair as they have not even listened to my songs at that point so I thought if the music business won’t help me get my music out there , I’ll bring my music to the people myself and that’s when I began busking . It was my unique way of getting my music heard by the people .

I may have been a daydream believer but what’s the point giving up and not giving it 100per cent of my effort .. I spend the next five years of my life busking my original songs for people to hear and I was making money doing that on the city streets in Ireland , England and Australia .

During that time I met a few who supported me with my efforts , some of those gave me shelter and food while others tried to get me gigs in the local pubs where my songs could be heard . For me that was the real beauty behind what I was trying to do . For what it’s worth those people who supported me and encouraged me

out there spoke a message to my soul in saying , you are a voice in the wilderness and we hear you , keep on doing what you do .

The End